It was a Thanksgiving miracle.
The highlight of my Wednesday was when one of my 5th grade students (a boy, mind you) asked me (in English--they're actually learning wooo!) if I missed my family. I, of course, said yes, and he proceeded to tell me it was going to be okay, and he gave me a hug. My heart melted.
Thursday was the big day. It was also the day I explained Thanksgiving a million times to my students. This was a good teaching day because I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. I started in 2nd grade where I reenacted the history of Thanksgiving. Yes, I made myself a pilgrim hat. And a Native American headband. And a boat, turkey, pumpkin, etc. I don't think my students have ever seen a teacher wearing a "costume" or explaining something in this particular manner. But I must say it was very successful. Next my time was spent in 1st grade where I did the same thing. After explaining the history vs. how we spend it today, I had them make Native American headbands for themselves. They also had to write one thing they were thankful for on the headband. And most of them wrote my name. My heart melted again. Thank God for children.
After, I moved onto 6th grade where I had the students play the roles in my narration of the history of Thanksgiving. Once again, very successful. For their activity, I had leaf templates. They had to write the name of someone they were thankful for. They then had to draw a picture and give it to the person. This was a beautiful activity. The students chose parents, friends, family, teachers, etc. They were so excited to make leaves for everyone that they even turned down playing a game. This is unheard of when it comes to kids.
Next I had 3rd grade and then 4th grade. I had both grades play the roles in my narration and also complete the leaf activity.
Receiving some love from my 3rd graders
The day ended with me leaving school with 13 leaves. It felt great to be appreciated.
Thursday felt like the longest day ever. This is mostly because I worked from 9:00-2:00, explained Thanksgiving a million times, food shopped, and then proceeded to cook Thanksgiving dinner. You are probably wondering why I was food shopping on Thanksgiving day. To start, no one celebrates this holiday so the stores weren't crazy with people. I also didn't have to worry about the store running out of supplies. And lastly, our Thanksgiving meal grew from four people originally to six people and then finally to ten people. The night before all of the other Americans living in Priego decided to join in our celebration. I also invited Sara since she had never celebrated a Thanksgiving before. I arrived home braced and ready to take on the task of cooking a Thanksgiving meal.
Thankfully, I did not have to worry about the turkey. That would have been a disaster.
Keep in mind, Spain is lacking is several food Americans are used to. Finding a lean cuisine is impossible. Along with most prepackaged/prepared food. Therefore, everything for our Thanksgiving was homemade. I mean EVERYTHING. For the pumpkin pie, I literally took a pumpkin and turned it into pumpkin puree.
Before
After
Canned pumpkin doesn't exist here. Neither does premade pie crust. I found the closest thing to graham crackers, smashed them into itty bitty crumbs and turned it into crust for the pumpkin pie.
Before
After
And finally, our last obstacle was the fact that we don't have an oven in our house. So the pie (along with the rest of our feast) had to be no bake. I prepared a no bake pie recipe my mother had emailed me. After about an hour of slaving over this dessert, I finally was ready to store it in the fridge. Then this happened...
Yep. I dropped the stupid thing. RIP pumpkin pie. I was rather frustrated after this, so I took my anger out on the floors of our house and thoroughly mopped them. Adding to the list of easy things Spain doesn't have.... They need to adopt the Swiffer. Like now. This whole mopping with an actual mop thing sucks. And if you want to do it properly, you have to mop the floors not once, but twice. When you live in a big house and all of the floors are marble, mopping is the absolute worst. But I was cranky, and the house needed to be cleaned anyway. After taking out my frustration on the floors, I showered.
SIDENOTE: I think one of the factors as to why I have been so homesick is because Priego is coldddd. The houses are built to keep out the brutal heat of the Summers. This also includes keeping out the heat during the winter. Therefore, our house is very cold. Did I also mention everything is marble? In addition to this, our hot water hadn't been working. We thought this was a normal thing since everything is Spain is cold. So we continued to shower in cold water very quickly. As the days got colder, so did our water. It got to a point where I cried one morning while showering because the water was so cold it was literally torture. Finally, I asked our landlords for help because it was day three without showering, and I was probably starting to smell. They rushed over and fixed the problem with our water heater. So now, we had HOT water! Finally. Another Thanksgiving miracle.
Back to Thursday... after mopping I took my first HOT shower. (Alleluia!) After showering I returned to the kitchen to continue cooking. First I needed to peel 27 potatoes. (Well this is something I have never done before. Who knew peeling potatoes was so hard.)
SIDENOTE #2: I hate cooking. Don't get me wrong; I am a very good cook. I just hate it. I much prefer throwing something already made in the microwave or ordering food from somewhere. However Spain has never heard of take out or making life easy when it comes to food. This is probably a good thing, however for me, I did spend some time starving (my diet was bread and cheese only), before finally giving in to this whole cooking thing. MOM & DAD-- I'm so domestic now. You should be proud. Disclaimer: While I may cook now to survive, I still plan on marrying a chef.
After struggling through the potatoes I put them into their designated pot of water and moved onto the stuffing. Once again, we don't have an oven. So this was my first time attempting homemade stuffing on the stove. I chopped up some onions (I'm getting really good at this), garlic, and celery. I threw in whatever spices we had in our cabinet. So really only salt and pepper. (Spain doesn't have very many spices.) Threw everything in a pot with some butter and chicken broth. Mixed it. And last added some cubed stale bread I had prepared a few days earlier. Fifteen minutes later, ta daaaa, we had homemade stuffing. My roommates were in charge of the vegetables so they prepared homemade, stove top, green bean casserole. I meanwhile mashed the potatoes. (Hand mixers/beaters don't exist here either, so really I pulverized the potatoes via spoon.) After completing the potatoes, I ran over to Sara's house to help her carry over the turkey. (I also met her new kitten she adopted off of the streets.) Finally with all of the food basically prepared, I cooked the gravy (thank you Mother for sending me gravy packets.) (P.S. Spain has never heard of gravy before.)
And finally.... it was time to eat. But first... we had to figure out how to actually carve a turkey. None of us had thought of that ahead of time. Ten minutes of watching YouTube videos later, we attempted carving...
And NOW finally... we feasted. I failed to tell Sara how much food she was going to be eating on this night. She must think we are all animals because while she nibbled on each dish, we stuffed our faces with EVERYTHING.
A random fun fact: a french girl is teaching in Priego too. She was invited to our Thanksgiving and brought her puppy Ebi (the word for sushi):
On Thanksgiving day, we stuffed our faces, gave thanks, and enjoyed each others company. But the best was yet to come...
FRIDAY was the better Thanksgiving for me. On this day, I ventured over to a nearby city called Puente Genil where two of my good friends I met in Sevilla live-- Maura and Katherine. My good friend Maggie was also there. On this day, I attempted pumpkin pie #2, and I am happy to report that this one did not end up on the floor.
I also made my stuffing and gravy again.
SIDENOTE #3: This stuffing recipe is amazing. Both nights, the stuffing was a big hit. I am never making any other kind of stuffing again.
Maura and Katherine faced the same struggle with the turkey as we did in Priego. They too, had someone hunt, kill, and pluck a turkey for them which they then prepared in their house. (The Spanish don't normally eat turkey.) Along with my food and the turkey, the girls prepared macaroni and cheese (made from scratch), sweet potato pie (made from scratch and AMAZING), mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce (made from scratch and also AMAZING), corn bread (made from scratch), asparagus, and cinnamon roasted almonds (homemade). Everything was perfect and delicious. For all of us, it was one of the best meals we had ever eaten. Maybe because we slaved over it. Or maybe because our bodies have been missing American food. Who knows. The entire meal was heavenly. Maura and Katherine had also invited their two close Spanish friends-- Rafa and Gema. This was their first Thanksgiving as well, and like Sara, they were shocked at the amount of food we had.
We ate until our stomachs couldn't fit anymore food. We also showed Gema and Rafa some Thanksgiving traditions (breaking the wishbone!)
After eating both dinner and dessert and talking A LOT, we decided to play the game "Taboo." For those who don't know, "Taboo" is the game where you are given a word, and you have to describe it to your partner and they have to guess it. The catch is, you can't say any of the forbidden words so you have to be very creative when describing it. However, this version of the game was in Spanish which made it extremely difficult for us Americans (mainly me) to play. But it showed me that I do know a lot of Spanish because I was able to successfully play and both Rafa and myself tied for first place with Katherine and Maggie.
Yes, we used a wine cork for a playing piece.
Our Thanksgiving in Puente Genil lasted seven hours. These are the girls that are my closest friends in Spain and spending time with them this Thanksgiving reminded me how lucky I am to have met them this year. And of course, because they are wonderful people and know me so well, they got me this....
Another Thanksgiving miracle.
And finally, I spent my Saturday in Cordoba with Maggie. I also was fortunate to be able to video chat all of my family back in the United States AND I finally got to Skype my butt head brother. (I say that with all of the love in my heart.)
Clearly, he loves me.
Look! They have the same eyes!
I leave Wednesday for Francia!! I cannot wait!!!
All in all, this weekend we definitely made the pilgrims proud. It will remain as one of my favorite memories here in Spain. I'm running out the door now to meet some friends, so I did not proof read. I apologize in advance MOTHER. Hasta Luego!
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